


Status Quo

by Tailish



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: American date format, Angst, Dubious niceness on all sides, Hopeful Ending, Hydra!Clint, M/M, Mixed styles, Non-Linear Narrative, Short, don't get confused folks because I sure did, generally canon-okay up until CA:TWS, handwavy on the timelines, mentions of suicidal intent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tailish/pseuds/Tailish
Summary: Barton, Clinton FrancisAgent Status:Former Senior Specialist (level 7); former Avengers Initiative candidate; compromised; disavowed; enemyThreat Level:Highest (intelligence; tactical; martial; special threat: Avengers)Allegiances:Barney Barton; Formerly SHIELD (Romanoff); formerly Avengers Initiative; HydraNotes:Do not engage, terminate on sight.File last edited: 12:13:08 05/11/2012





	1. I

**Barton, Clinton Francis**  
**Agent Status:** Senior Specialist (Level 7); Avengers Initiative candidate  
**Threat Level:** Negligible (grounds: loyalty, character)  
**Allegiances:** Barney Barton; SHIELD (Coulson, Romanoff)  
**Notes:** Works primarily under Senior Agent Phillip Coulson (Level 8); Handlers wishing to request Agent Barton should contact Agent Coulson; primary parter Senior Specialist Natasha Romanoff (Level 7); valuable SHIELD asset  
_File last edited: 08:47:14 10/24/2011_

-_-_-

When Nick recruits him out of a dive bar in Malaysia, Clint tells him straight away that he won’t work with older white men. He’s about to be part of a secret government agency, dammit, but really they should be happy that he’s owning up to the fact he’s got Issues with a capital i.  
Except that Fury laughs in his face and says “look, kid, the world’s a fucked up place. But I haven’t got the time or the patience to coddle you. You’ll work with who I say you will.”  
Clint scowls, and demands to know who that would be. Fury’s face only barely softens. “The man you’ll work for, you’ll like him. Straightass motherfucker, but a heart the size of Texas. Kind, courageous, doesn’t take bullshit.”  
“Sounds like some kinda hero you got there, Director.”  
“Not really. He’s one of those people you can’t help but follow, not because they’re heroes, but because they carry with them the belief that you are. You’ll see it when you meet him.”  
“Oh, will I.”  
Fury’s eyes gain a distinct glimmer. “Care to bet, kid?”  
Clint thinks, I can always run if he’s a liar, and shakes the other man’s hand. 

-_-_-

Iron man falls out of the sky. The battle is won.  
Stark says, “hey, so we should do that again.”  
Stark says, “the saving the world part, I mean. Not the aliens. The aliens were not ideal circumstances, all things considered.”  
Stark says, “what I mean is, we should have a way to contact each other. And of course, face to face communication is always better. It’s been proven by science.”  
Stark draws a breath to say something else, and Rogers breaks first. They segue seamlessly into another one of their arguments, looking for all the world like they’re having the time of their lives and simultaneously like they want to beat the shit out of each other. Clint debates the consequences of just kind of falling down on the nearest piece of sidewalk (because ow, legs), but decides against it (because ow, Tasha). He really does want to sit down, but Fury will probably drag their asses in for a debrief the minute he’s able to find them, so going home to get some sleep would be useless. He briefly wonders what Phil is up to, but it’s probably paperwork. The space bugwhales caused a fuckton of property damage, which means the Pentagon is going to be on their ass about how _the defence budget isn’t infinite, stop using explosive arrows, Barton._  
Then, he hears “How about it, Barton?” coming from Stark.  
“Huh?” he replies, at which point Stark starts to look impatient because the man gave his life to save the world not an hour ago, but wow, he can be a dick sometimes.  
“You, me, everyone else in our little superhero club: living at Stark Tower. You’re boarding on the Helicarrier, right? C’mon, you can’t tell me that’s comfortable, with Fury-“  
“Stark,” Clint interrupts. “Are you actually out of your mind?”  
Stark, the bastard, appears to actually consider the question. “Well, not officially,” he begins, “but-“  
“You have known me for less than forty-eight hours,” Clint stresses. “most of that time, I was the - the minion of a literal evil alien overlord. I tried to kill all of you. You have no clue who I am other than a _government sanctioned assassin_. Are you out of your goddamn mind?”  
“Well,” Stark shrugs. “We all make mistakes.”  
Clint closes his eyes. He doesn’t deserve this kind of generosity, or the blatant trust implied in it, not with over 50 Agents and counting dead by his hand. His voice, he knows, comes out flat when he says, “I have an apartment already.”  
“Okay, no pressure.” Stark looks hurt, anyway, but he shoulders on. “Shawarma? Shawarma. Don’t worry, Rogers, I’ll explain the scary future food to you.” 

-_-_-

Precisely one year into SHIELD Specialist Clinton Francis Barton’s tenure, six months after Senior Agent Phillip Coulson is assigned his handler, and five weeks after an op gone south leaves them with matching knife scars, someone breaks into Director Fury’s office and leaves ten dollars in the centre of his desk. The entire base is scheduled for a security overhaul after no evidence is found as to who placed the note on the desk. In Coulson’s office, Barton throws his dusty boots up on the sofa that’s recently appeared to occupy the rearmost corner, and smiles at Coulson’s carefully blank non-response.  
“Just settling an old bet, sir.”

-_-_-

After - after the battle, and the shawarma, while they’re sitting around the table falling asleep, he takes out his phone to call Phil. He’s exhausted, barely on his feet, and it’s likely that Phil’s got paperwork stacked six ways to Sunday that he wants to get started on, but Clint’s planning on trying to get him into bed for at least twelve hours and just convince himself that it’s over, _it’s finally over, he's gone_ , before the cleanup starts in earnest.  
Before he can swipe at the screen to unlock it, though, Tasha’s filched it straight out of his hands. “Tashaaa,” he whines without looking in her direction. “Give my phone back.”  
“Clint,” and that’s her serious voice, and that’s her serious face, “we should take a walk.”  
And he knows.  
“Tasha.” He’s looking into her eyes, and he sees _regret, pain, sorrow,_ and love there, all of the emotions she likes to pretend she never has. “No.”  
“Clint,” her hands are on his face now, thumbs wiping at his cheekbones, “I’m sorry. It was Loki - spear straight through the heart. It would’ve been painless.”  
“No,” he repeats, tears rolling down his face. “No.”  
“They gave me the ring and his tags, if you want.”  
The others have caught onto the fact that something’s going on. Rogers has already figured out what happened, because he looks surprised for a brief moment, before his face settles into a sadness so profound it makes Clint uncomfortable to notice. Banner and Stark both look confused, and worried, like they want to figure out what’s making him cry and solve the problem.  
“No,” he repeats again, and walks out. 

-_-_-

They never have a first date, because by the time they get around to adding kissing and sex to their friendship, they’ve eaten a hundred dinners together and spent hours in each others company. So when Phil crashes at his place for the night, and they end up sleeping in the same bed, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to kiss him when Clint wakes up. Phil has that stupid little smile on his face that he gets when things are going exactly the way he wants even as Clint leans into him, and he can’t help but feel affection and lust curl low and warm in his stomach. “Hey,” he murmurs quietly into Phil’s mouth.  
“Hey.” Phil’s grin, this early in the morning, is a work of art. It’s slow and lazy and calm, everything that Agent Coulson never is. Clint thinks that in this moment, it belongs solely to him, and he falls just a little bit more in love. 

-_-_-

Hill calls him into her office a week after. The plaque on her door reads ‘Assistant Director’.  
“Agent Barton,” she begins. “SHIELD would like to commend you for your actions during the Battle of New York. However, due to your unique participation, if under extreme duress, in the circumstances leading to the attack and especially noting your leading of the infiltration of the helicarrier using criminal forces, the Council finds themselves agreed that SHIELD is no longer in need of your skills. SHIELD will fully compensate you with the standard honourable discharge package, and you have the option of-“  
He interrupts her. “Am I being fired?”  
She keeps talking without looking him in the eye. “-using SHIELD resources such as our counselling and legal departments for up to one year after the termination of your employment with SHIELD. Kasandrov from HR will conduct your debrief and help you with any final paperwork.”  
“Maria,” he says, bewildered. “What the fuck?”  
“Thank you for your service, Former Agent Barton,” she says. “Dismissed.”

-_-_-

They’re lying in bed when Phil says,  
“We should have a safeword.”  
Clint nuzzles his face into Phil’s neck and grins.  
“Babe, we only ever have vanilla sex. Is there something you want to tell me?” He can feel Phil rolling his eyes at him.  
“No, I mean for work. If one of us ever gets in a situation where - if we ever need to say something and have the other know that we’re completely serious.”  
“Command codes, babe. You have ‘em. Pull mine out and I gotta listen.” He tilts his head up to look at Phil, who’s looking down at him from where his head rests on the pillow.  
“This would also be for you, Clint. I feel like this is something we need to have.”  
“One of those feelings, is it?” All three of them get them - the gut feelings that say do or don’t, and that are so very hard to ignore, so they don’t.  
“Yeah. That is, if you don’t mind.” Phil looks uncertain, as if Clint would ever tell him no.  
“Of course I don’t, babe.”

-_-_-

When he checks the peephole the next morning, Nick is standing in front of his door.  
He opens the door and glares. Nick sighs and shoves past him into the room before sitting down on his shitty couch. There’s still a pair of dirty underwear on there, but if Nick wanted the goddamn Ritz, he shouldn’t have bothered Clint.  
“What,” he says.  
Nick looks him in the eye. “I was wondering whether you saw _Starlight_. It’s similar to that movie about Oman, although personally I’ve always felt like that contains too many references to Solzhenitsyn.”  
Starlight, Oman, Solzhenitsyn. And Nick looking at him with that one-eyed stare of his, practically begging him to say something.  
“Get the fuck out of my house.”  
“Barton. This is not about you.” His tone is calm, trying to placate him, but Clint’s too angry for it to work.  
“No, this isn’t about me. I though you were his friend. You could at least respect his memory-“  
“I am respecting his memory, Barton.” It comes out quietly, but it shuts Clint up all the same. “I’m not the one moping around feeling sorry for myself. I’m doing what he would have wanted - trying to move on and fix things.”  
“You fired me.”  
“Consider yourself lucky. Starlight, Oman, Solzhenitsyn.” Nick’s voice makes it clear that further argument is not an option.  
He really, really wants to continue arguing.  
“Candelabra, Caracas, Emanuel.” Nick raises an eyebrow at his lack of proper adherence to the fucking _protocol_ Phil had insisted on, but lets it go. He stands up and walks towards the door, before turning around in the hallway to ask,  
“I’m going to go get some cigarettes from the bodega. Can I borrow two bucks?”  
Clint slams the door in his face, and feels a vindictive satisfaction when it rattles in the frame. 

-_-_-

**Memorandum: Internal SHIELD Communications**  
Access classified Level 9 and above: eyes only  
**From:** _Director N. Fury_  
**To:** _P. Coulson, M. Hill_  
[13:57:08 05/05/2012]  
I’ve put our hunter to do the shopping. Spider knows. No one else, especially not the Circus.  
Opened by _M. Hill_ , 54:03:09 05/05/2012  
Opened by _P. Coulson_ , 12:04:22 12/01/2012

-_-_-

He’s at the bodega at quarter past two the next day, just to be an asshole, but the man behind the counter just looks at him and hands him a “happy 6th birthday!” envelope, because not only is Nick a sarcastic asshole who doesn’t trust their - his - apartment not to have ears on it, he’s now also wary of SHIELD tech.  
Fan-fucking-tastic.  
The envelope contains encrypted orders and coordinates in one of the standard Level 7 SHIELD cyphers, which is hilarious, because he’s not a-  
_The man you’ll work for; you’ll like him. He’s one of those people you can’t help but follow, not because they’re heroes, but because they carry with them the belief that you are._  
Goddammit, Phil.  
He is a SHIELD agent, even if Fury and Hill can go fuck themselves sideways with a cactus.  
He calls the number on a burner phone.  
“You’ll have to tell Tasha,” is the first thing he says.  
“She already knows.” Of course Nick would make sure to cover that particular base. They both know it wouldn’t be pretty if she decided to chase Clint down.  
“The others?”  
“They don’t need to know.”  
“You want to let Captain fucking American think that I went over to Hydra.”  
With no hesitation: “Yes.”  
“And Tony fucking Stark. The man with trust issues bigger than that dick of a building he owns.”  
“None of this is on the record. He can’t hack his way into a file if it doesn’t exist.”  
“Dude offered me a place in his tower.”  
“That’s his problem, Barton.”  
He hangs up the phone. He’s got shady criminals to contact.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in tags! **This chapter contains potentially triggering content** , although not more than canon themes as presented in IM2/IM3

**Memorandum: Internal SHIELD Communications**  
Access classified Level 9 and above: eyes only  
**From:** _P. Coulson_  
**To:** _Director N. Fury_  
[43:06:22 12/01/2012]  
Nick,  
do you really thik that upping my clearance will make me ok with the fact that you sent him out to infitlrate HYDRA without telling him I was alive? Hint” the answer is no.  
Fuck you, Marcus.  
Opened by _Director N. Fury_ , 12:04:22 12/02/2012 

-_-_-

The first two weeks feel like freedom.  
He runs, runs, runs, far away from SHIELD and it’s branches. It’s been ages since he’s had complete freedom of movement, with nowhere to be and no one to meet, and he lets himself get lost in the exhilarating rush of it all.  
Then, when he’s gotten a haircut and as off the radar as he’s going to get in an urban environment, he starts telling stories.  
Hawkeye cooperated with Loki in New York. Hawkeye defeated Loki in New York. Hawkeye was brainwashed in New York. Hawkeye wasn’t brainwashed, Hawkeye was Loki’s all along. Hawkeye was fired. Hawkeye was dishonourably discharged. The arrow dude lost his shit and the feds kicked him out.  
It takes all of a week for the first informant to approach him, chat him up, see how he’s doing. He makes it clear that he’s angry, and bitter, and the informant looks like Christmas has come early.  
A week later, there comes a formal recruitment offer. 

-_-_-

Every time he falls asleep, he wakes up with Phil, Phil, Phil on the tip of his tongue.

-_-_-

The next two years feel like drowning.  
Every other week, he calls Nick on a burner with new names and intel. He provides lists of firms to investigate for suspicious transactions, key players high up in the administrative structure, and the coordinates of as many bases as he can get his hands on.  
And it’s a lot, because hilariously, Hydra trusts him. He’s played his game convincingly enough that they _know_ he hates SHIELD for what they did to him, and hates the Avengers even more for leaving him behind in the dust. They _know_ his motivations and his ticks and the way he talks when he’s three beers past tipsy and ranting about it all. He feeds them bits and pieces of intel. They’re strung along by the raids he leads on safehouses that were already compromised, or bases that he knew had been forewarned and mostly evacuated of critical materiel, intel, and agents. He gives them, essentially, fish food, and gets tuna steak in return.  
Agents die on the raids he leads. He-  
It’s not that he doesn’t-  
But the thing-  
The thing is: fuck the fucking greater good. And fuck Nick Fury and Maria Hill and all the Avengers, too.  
In some of his less lucid moments, lying awake at night, he wonders how Hydra ever made it this far into the 21st Century. They’re disorganised, full of internal competition, and lacking the slightest bit of common sense. For fuck’s sake, they let the agent of an enemy player into their command structure because _he said he’d switched sides_. It’s ludicrous, and he feels faintly embarrassed that SHIELD has had such a hard time catching them.  
But regardless of how well the game goes, playing it is exhausting. He’s an asshole to everyone he meets, and he knows it. After a while, he can feel the rumours settling in around him. _No wonder,_ they say, _the man’s impossible to get along with_. Impossible is a reputation he’s had before but, he thinks, it’s never been quite as well deserved as it is now. He’s grumpy and rude, not talking unless he absolutely has to. At night, he retires to his quarters and doesn’t re-emerge until he’s needed again. After all, he’s not here to make friends. 

-_-_-

He faces off against the Avengers, and it never hurts any less. As a former member of the team - if barely so - he’s the one Hydra calls in when they want to make sure an attack plays out a certain way, whether that means letting them capture the base and rescuing sensitive information, or making sure everything goes up in a blaze of shame and betrayal. Natasha stays far away from him, probably so she doesn’t have to kill him if they encounter each other. But Rogers always comes to find him, and he looks so betrayed every time they face off against one another.  
“I know you’re better than this, Clint,” he says the first time. “You can still come home.” Clint shoots him through the thigh, and runs away.  
The second time, “you don’t want to do this.”  
“We thought you were a part of the team.”  
And, after the fifth time Clint’s evaded him, in a tone of voice that screams rage, and betrayal, and _I trusted you_ , “If you don’t stop this, we’ll stop you all.” 

-_-_-

The worst part is that he has betrayed not only SHIELD, but the Avengers, and Steve personally most of all, and they don’t even know. A year in, he gets transferred from the shoddy bases he runs around in in Northern America to one deep in the forests of continental Europe. There, they introduce him to the Asset.  
The aide is eager when she explains the conditioning process to him. She talks about how the Asset functions best when handled gently and given a very wide ability to make his own tactical decisions. They’d had him on a tighter rein in the past, apparently, but it hadn’t been good for the conditioning, he’d started rebelling against it and causing all kinds of trouble.  
Later, they show him highly redacted files of some of the Asset’s previous missions, and it is all he can do not to burst out laughing, because they are idiots.  
The Asset’s name is James Buchanan Barnes, Cap’n’s pall from the War. Barnes’ official records have him down as a very good sniper (not Clint level, but nobody is), as well as a decent infiltrator and tactician. The Asset has been trained in these crafts and more: reading through his ‘educational history’ is very similar to scanning through Natasha’s file. He’s a spy’s spy, they say. A literal ghost, a legend, the spectre of communism physically haunting the world. Sure.  
The man takes out targets _in the open_. In broad fucking daylight. In front of witnesses. It this is the Asset being compliant, while doing everything he can to announce his presence to the world, the fight Barnes put up in the sixties must have been fucking spectacular.  
But he says “okay,” when they ask him to accompany the Asset on missions “because of your similar tactical backgrounds”, and “sure,” when they tell him for the third time to keep an eye on _it_ at all times, and “fuck off, kid,” when the aide tries to hand him a gun with hollow-point bullets.  
They teach him to use the _reset hardware_ , and no matter how many times he tells himself that _I won’t do it, I can’t do it, this is the last time_ \- he applies it correctly every time. He’s no neurosurgeon or even a remotely qualified doctor, and if it goes wrong he could break Barnes beyond repair.  
No. Barnes isn’t an object, and therefore he is not beyond repair because people are not things to be repaired. They can’t be treated in terms of broken or whole. People deserve to be treated with that respect. He knows th-  
He is listed in the Hydra ledgers as being the Asset’s most successful handler. 

-_-_-

SHIELD agents of his calibre don’t have the option of going mad.  
Not if they’re captured and held in solitary confinement for seventeen days. Not if a terrorist group blows up the rest of their team and the extraction. Not if an alien demigod rapes their brain and forces them to attack, maim, and kill their own. Not if they spend one and a half years as an enemy player, doing exactly that of their own free will. Not if they help said enemy player brainwash a twenty-five year old boy, recorded in the history books with a rakish smile and wild hair and joy in his eyes, into exactly that.  
SHIELD agents of his calibre take a deep breath, suck it up, and move on with the job. They don’t wake up at night, gasping. They don’t spend hours outside in fallow fields, saying _I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,_ to two young men and the world who will never hear them.  
SHIELD agents of his calibre play the game recklessly, and they don’t stop to think about the consequence of it all until they win. 

-_-_-

Whatever he does, it’s not good enough.  
The ‘carriers fall, and people die. Most of them are Hydra, sure, because Nick was able to orchestrate a quiet evacuation of everyone whose loyalties he was able to ascertain, but it cripples them all the same. Everyone in SHIELD had friends, colleagues, family on those carriers, and their allegiance does not change the bitterness of their deaths. SHIELD mourns, not only for their organisation and their pride and joy, but for the people they weren’t able to save. SHIELD mourns, and the Asset pushes Captain America into the Potomac and then dives after him before dragging him out, shouting in - Hungarian? Clint hadn’t been expecting the Hungarian, but okay.  
Okay.  
SHIELD mourns, and Clint Barton watches from the sidelines.  
He hasn’t truly been a part of this organisation in over two years. Natasha and he had always been a class by themselves, but strike team delta had been seen by the others as SHIELD. Clint Barton, on the other hand, is well known to be Hydra. It had been what had made his cover in Hydra so effective those past years, but Hydra was dregs and scraps right now. And nobody, save for Natasha, had known which side of the fence he’d been playing. He can’t go back to SHIELD, not when the organisation is like this, and he can’t go to the Avengers, not when he’d betrayed them to the extent that he had.  
He turns around and walks away. 

-_-_-

The facts are these:  
His final mission is over. Hydra is broken.  
The Avengers are a team, and one capable of mopping up the remaining bits and pieces.  
SHIELD is gone.  
All of the Avengers thought he was Hydra.  
All of SHIELD thought he was Hydra, except for Nick Fury.  
Nick Fury is dead. Phil Coulson is dead.  
Hawkeye died in 2012 at the same moment Phil Coulson did.  
Clint Bartons is-  
Clint Barton needs a pen, paper, his gun, and to stay away from Natasha Romanoff.  
Conveniently, Natasha Romanoff is busy with one James Buchanan Barnes, alias the Winter Soldier (possibly, he thinks, the one good thing to come out of all of this).  
He thinks, I’m going home. 

-_-_-

Clint opens the door to the old apartment, and fuck the security protocols that say he can’t, although it’s not like they’ll matter anymore. Nick motherfucking Fury looks up from where he’s sat in Clint’s chair.  
Nick says, “Time to come home from the cold, asshole.”  
Clint says, “I thought you were dead.”  
Nick says, “Fuck you, I only got a little shot.”  
Phil says, “That’s going around.”  
Clint almost stabs him in the eye as Nick asks with faux interest, “Getting only a little shot?”  
“No,” Phil explains patiently. “You lying about people being dead, apparently.”  
“What the shit,” says Clint. And then: “ _Phil._ ” He wishes he could keep the anguish out of his voice, but there is Phil standing in his kitchen in one of those suits he always wears, and it’s like it’s always been, because that’s Phil there, and Phil is-  
Phil is dead.  
Phil is dead, and Phil is in the kitchen, holding a mug of tea, wearing the most heartbreakingly uncertain expression on his face. “Clint,” he says, and his voice is no less uncertain He can’t keep standing up after the past few days, and so he doesn’t. His knees hit the floor. “Phil’s dead,” he mumbles numbly. He knows because he killed Phil, so Phil can’t be standing in the kitchen, no, crouching down next to him now, with tears rolling freely down his face.  
“God, no,” Phil gasps. “No, Clint, I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll never leave again, it’s not your fault,” and then he’s pulling Clint into his arms until Clint’s chin rests on his shoulder. It feels real, and warm, and Clint thinks that if he’s lost his mind, he’s okay with that as long as he gets to keep this moment. There are tears on his cheeks, too, but he can’t bring himself to close his eyes and cry.  
“Phil,” he says, exhales, “I killed, I- you, I killed you, fuck.”  
“No. No, love, I’m here, I promise you, I’ll never leave again. Clint,” Phil’s beautiful grey eyes are red from the crying as he draws back to cup Clint’s fate in his hands, and there are lines on his forehead that Clint’s never seen before. His cheeks are hollow and the collar of his shirt looks too big to fit on his neck, but he is flushed and Clint can count his breaths and feel them move through his chest, “Clint, love, I’m alive, you didn’t kill me, I promise you.”  
Phil had never broken a promise to him.  
Phil is alive.  
He grabs at Phil’s shirt and buries his face in the other man’s chest as he breaks. 

-_-_-

Rogers is tentatively thinking about proposing to Stark. Stark’s already bought a ring. If what he hears from Natasha is correct, this means they’ll try to propose at the same time, get mad, fight for a week, and then have kinky exhibistionistic make-up sex.  
Natasha has thoroughly flirted Roger’s friend Wilson into complete submission. Their dynamic is hilarious to watch - it consists mostly of terrifying competence, sass, and jokes at Roger’s expense. She fits in well with the team, and he can tell from the little lines around her eyes that she’s happy there.  
Banner is married to his science and a faded picture of a girl he keeps on his desk, while Barnes - ever improving - remembers to speak English most mornings he doesn’t wake up screaming. The Avengers inner circle is expanding, too. Stark’s adopted a twelve year old in a onesie, apparently giving Rogers heart attacks on a biweekly basis as he tries to make sure the kid actually goes to school. There’s a man called Scott and a woman called Carol and two kids called Wanda and Pietro and Stark’s other other child Vision. They live in their shiny new compound building and get into fights and save the world and laugh together on the front pages of the tabloids.  
From the sidelines, Clint hugs Phil to his chest and buries his face in the crook of his neck until he’s able to breathe again. 

-_-_-

He goes to visit Barnes at the clinic, but he can’t force himself to walk into the room. For three hours, he sits against the wall outside, until Steve arrives with lines on his forehead and politely ushers him into the room. Clint dawdles in the corner whileSteve fusses over Barnes, until the latter sends him off on an errand to hunt down one of the doctors. Tentatively, Clint sits down on the chair next to Barnes’ bed. They both stare at the wall.  
“Steve doesn’t understand. He tries, he does, but he’s not like you or I, or Natalya. He won’t ever get your decision to do what you did.”  
“But you do.”“I do. I can’t forgive you. But I can understand.”  
“I-“ Clint swallows. “That means a lot to me. And. I know it doesn’t fix anything, but. Fuck.” He tips his head back and closes his eyes, and when he looks at Barnes again, he knows that Barnes knows what’s coming. “I’m sorry. I should never have done that, I should have. Tried harder. Done something.”  
“You did what you thought you had to do.”  
“Yeah.” _I thought I could play the hero for the only man who ever meant anything to me, but look at what I became._ “I-“ he digs around in his back pocket and fishes out a usb stick. “If you want - this is the only copy. I scourged the system.” Barnes carefully raises his hand and takes the usb.  
“The unredacted files.” It’s not a question, but there is just a hint of wonder in Barnes’ voice.  
“Yeah.” Inhale, exhale. “If you ever- in case. You know.”  
Barnes, too, breathes. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to know. But. To have the option is - good.”  
They sit in silence until Steve comes back. 

-_-_-

Natasha, being Natasha, sneaks into his bedroom and eats his snacks in a paltry attempt to disguise the fact that she’s come to check up on him. He lets her know that he knows what she’s doing by cocking an eyebrow, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. Nothing around her does. She’s changed from SHIELD Agent Romanoff to Romanoff the Avenger, and while it hasn’t made her less dangerous, she’s softer now. Kinder.  
He doesn’t know how to cope with it.  
“Hey,” she says.  
“Hey,” he parrots back. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with that.  
Eventually, he asks. “Nick told you, right?”  
“He did.” She pops a mini donut into her mouth, and says, around the crumbs, “He kept you in the Avenger’s loop.” It’s not a question, except this is Natasha.  
“I stopped asking,” he answers honestly. She switches, abruptly, and it’s only because he still loves her more than anyone in the world except Phil that he doesn’t punch her.  
“You had a gun on you, that day.”  
There’s no point in denying it, but. “Yes, Nat. I was fighting an aerial battle between two helicarriers from both sides, each of whom wanted me dead, while trying to catch up with an internationally renowned super soldier assassin. Yes, I had a gun.”  
“Clint.” He turns his face away from her, but he can feel her eyes looking at him through the back of his head - looking at his brand new shirt, because he hadn’t had any civilian clothes, at his too-long hair and scraggly stubble, at the carefully made up bandages that he hadn’t removed since Phil - Phil - had taken him to the hospital, at the empty knife sheats on his thighs and the small of his back and his left calf. “Please.”  
It’s a word that rarely leaves her mouth, and she knows the effect it has on him. Still studying the shelves on the wall, he replies “It’s fine now. I wouldn’t do that to him, Nat.”  
She sighs. “I know.”  
They have nothing left to say to one another, so she leaves. 

-_-_-

When they get married, the Avengers are guests of honour, which is hilarious because Phil still has such a hard-on for Captain America (if not for Steve Rogers, which is weird because _has Phil seen the guy_ ) it’s unbelievable.  
It’s not going down in history as the best wedding ever - even if Stark would have let it. Phil is Director, so its occurrence alone is Level 6 classified, and Clint is Clint, so he trips over Lucky - flower dog - on the walkway thingy and almost faceplants. It’s their wedding, though, and at the end of the day, when he’s getting into a car (“Car, Tony, not limousine, not plane, car. C, a, r.”) with a fully packed trunk, bad gas station food, a maximum of three experimental weapons, no maps, and his newly minted husband behind the wheel, he thinks, okay.  
Like this, it’s turned out okay. 

-_-_-

 **Barton-Coulson, Clinton Francis**  
**Agent Status:** Senior Analyst (Level 8); contractor to the Avengers Initiative; (weaponry; strategy; intelligence; coördination with SHIELD)  
**Threat Level:** Negligible  
**Allegiances:** Barney Barton; Coulson; Romanoff; Barnes  
**Notes:** Primarily works independently; on occasion with the Avengers Initiative, lead by Cpt. Steven Rogers (Level 8-A); Handlers wishing to request Agent Barton for a single mission should contact Director Coulson  
_File last edited: 23:25:07 03/11/2015_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, it's done! 
> 
> This entire fic originates from the scene in part I about safe words. Everything else is padding to give that particular piece of dialogue a story.
> 
> I struggled most with the last four or five segments, so give me all the concrit in the comments about how they turned out!


End file.
